Monthly Archives: June 2007

Our door is always open to visiting journalists. This week we were able to talk shop with Chris Krewson of The Morning Call in Allentown, where he runs the online operation. His mcall.com is about to get the same redesign treatment we can already see in Orlando and Hartford. (The Tribune Company hard at work.) Chris’s own shop does a lot of video work. He’s researched other examples of excellent newsroom video and has shared these findings:

The Bakersfield Californian. Last year they produced 400-500 videos and 70 percent was shot by reporters. Web editor Davin McHenry says: Ninety percent of reporter-shot video is edited by
another person. We have a pool of 6 people who edit video (most of the work is
done by two people, the multimedia producer and multimedia
reporter.) Additionally the web editor, assistant web editor, night
editor and one reporter help pitch in with editing as needed. The other
10 percent is edited by reporters themselves.

The Washington Post and the Post documentary video page. Some examples from reporters:*Washington Post "Answer Man" John Kelly goes to the Roosevelt Memorial Bridge
for an inside look at the unique machine that lifts barriers to alter lanes
during rush hour.*Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War patrolled the streets of Washington,
D.C., as the U.S. entered its fifth year in Iraq. Reporter: David Montgomery.*In the Pacific Northwest, wind and hydro-power are coming together to produce
electricity without the release of any greenhouse gases. Post reporter Blaine Harden interviews Brad Peck,
Energy Northwest.*Brigid Schulte, a Metro reporter, shoots Mary McElveen, recently appointed Alexandria’s poet laureate, who talks about what
she hopes to do for poetry in the city.*Washington Post Reporter Nelson Hernandez was traveling with a convoy delivering
new water trucks to the water agency in Baghdad when they came under attack by
insurgents.

Note: The Hernandez video was edited by Chet Rhodes, a multimedia editor at the dot com Post newsroom and one of the most influential trainers for reporters and photographers getting started in video. Editors in Roanoke (Carole Tarrant) and Allentown (Chris Krewson again!) praise his one-day training sessions.

Three lessons from Rhodes: 1. Save seven minutes at the end of an interview for the video segment. 2. Let the subject tidy up, and 3. Ask two questions, no more.

The Asbury Park Press. That link starts a series of videos streaming. Recently, there were videos on a fire, on a bed and breakfast rehab project, and on a 107th birthday. This link starts another series, which recently included a video on a bus accident and then rolled into the rehab project video.

Notes on video players: I look to see 1. is there a "share this" or "email this video" button? 2. Will the player indicate both the length of the video and how much time has elapsed so far? and 3. Is the user appropriately given notice about any ad and about how long it will be before the newsroom video starts?

Update Continuing a chain-wide push, the Gannett paper in Lansing, Mich., is also publishing salaries of state employees. The search could be better, but the data set is clear and easy to use. The newsroom is getting thousands of page views and drawing praise and scorn. Samples:

this is such an invasion of privacy. It wouldn’t be o.k. to just list the titles
and the salary range?? You people have gone too far.

and

Way to go LSJ!! There is nothing wrong with sharing this
information with the public – it’s their legal right to know. Besides, I love
reading the State employees’ replies – priceless.

The paper published an opinion piece defending the data release. The author, Jane Briggs-Bunting, is a media law expert and herself a state employee:

It remains vitally important the citizens of this state know down to the
penny what we are paying all of our employees. We are still a government of the
people, by the people and for the people. It’s not the state of Michigan, Inc.
Every taxpayer in the state is a shareholder.

Bottom line: State employees, including me (an MSU faculty member), all work
for the people of Michigan. Any member of the public should be able to walk in
the door of any state, county, city, village, township, university or school
district office during regular business hours and ask for this very same
information and receive it.

Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act requires this information be public, as
it should be. Too bad we need a law to ensure the people get to see at least
some of the people’s business, but we do – or this information would never have
been released.

But some teachers are upset that their salaries were disclosed; some
said the salary figures are wrong. Dan Goldfarb, a teacher at Banneker
Academic High School, said publishing the figures is "offensive,"
invades his privacy and "is totally unnecessary."

While that
anger is understandable, there is a higher good to be served here —
accountability. There is no way to assess how each school is doing
without looking specifically at what is spent. If the names are veiled,
it is harder to hold individuals as well as the District accountable.

Public
employees’ salaries are public records. When someone is paid with
taxpayers’ money, that salary is liable to be made public whether
you’re the president of the United States
or the county dogcatcher. (It’s possible I’m inured to this from being
married to a longtime educator whose salary was frequently published.)

The
Post regularly prints the salaries of others whose records are public,
such as highly compensated executives of publicly traded companies —
obtained from the Securities and Exchange Commission — and the salaries of executives of nonprofit organizations, which must file tax records to keep that status.

The
compensation figures are what the school district budgeted for each
staffer, and many include 15 percent added for benefits; that was added
to the Web graphic Monday. Those who see inaccuracies should e-mail dc-schools@washpost.com
so the graphic can be amended. The map invites readers’ help. Readers
already have alerted The Post about issues to follow in later reporting.

Distinctive visuals grab readers and hold their attention. For decades, Art Shay and other sophisticated photographers with a technical bent have used panoramic cameras including the Widelux for terrific shots. Newspaper web sites are starting to experiment with full 360-degree photography. Check out this stunning audio and visual of a memorial on the Drillfield to the Virginia Tech victims (from The Roanoke Times). Other companies, including VRWay, are posting their own versions. Panoramas.dk collects more examples and information on the story behind the photos. Now, Rob Curley is planning on using panoramas for very local, and very functional, compelling visuals on the new Loudon County hyper-local site on washingtonpost.com (emphasis added):

The site will also have several new features that the printed paper can’t match. Rob Curley, WPNI’s vice president of product development, takes on a nearly evangelical fervor as he talks up what he’s got in store. Whipping out his ever-present Apple laptop and clicking frantically, he shows off a database that includes panoramic photos of every high school football field in the county; click on sections of the grandstands and you can see the sight lines to the field. There will be podcasts of some local church sermons, real-time accounts of high-school games and highly detailed restaurant guides, too. "You want to know which [county] restaurants are open after 11 p.m. on a Thursday? Boom! There you go!" he says, triumphantly displaying such a list.

OnlineJournalismReview interviewed Gary Kebbel, journalism program officer for the Knight Foundation, about the new Knight Grants. Here’s a highlight on the grant to EveryBlock:

OJR:Adrian Holovaty won $1.1 million for his open-source software
idea. What stood out about his project?

Kebbel: First of all, it’s an extension of his current
ChicagoCrime.org, but it’s Chicagocrime.org on steroids. It’s going to take
every possible public database that makes sense–whether that’s global or
regional or national–and combine it in a way where you type in your address and
you find out everything going on on your street or in your neighborhood. You can
find out where there’s a new school proposal, or where a restaurant is going to
be shut down, or if the city has decided to change trash pickup regulations.

Key phrase: every possible public database. That’s prime territory for newspapers and their affiliated websites. Newspapers have reporters and data experts who already know where those databases are, how to obtain them, and which ones have the best information. They know the pitfalls and they know how to move efficiently to make the most of these crime datasets (as crime maps, for example), teacher salary datasets, home sales datasets, and more. If newspapers are slow to act, others will grab that space, just as Craig Newmark grabbed the free classified space. The Knight Foundation is helping point the way, but smart newsrooms are already moving rapidly in the right direction.

If a news organization is gong to collect and make available data sets of information from public sources, one important step is to support a strong right-to-know law. Pennsylvania now has what is widely considered one of the worst laws and compliance with even that law is spotty. Agencies that do studies on their own problems, from the police to schools to the Department of Human Services, often fail to release those studies to the public, hiding their problems instead of helping increase public pressure to solve them.

A hearing in Harrisburg on Monday considered these questions. I talked about the babies who died in DHS care while the department and the city of Philadelphia refused to make public their own reviews that pointed out the egregious flaws in department policies and procedures. Only after The Inquirer did a series of investigatory articles did the city start to make more of this information public.

Ron Barber and Teri Henning talked about the most fundamental problem with the current law — it presumes public records are private. Ron read a powerful preamble from the West Virginia Freedom of Information law. We heard Graham Spanier of Penn State say that his university should be exempt.

"Develop simple database applications with photos and maps to let your users
actually find what they’re looking for, or partner with a good third-party
vertical who can."— That’s from Invisible Inkling and his 10 obvious things about the future of newspapers. All 10 are worthwhile. This is No. 2" "It’s not Craig’s fault."

The Morning Call seems to get it. Evidence: The Morning Call posted 20,000 kennel inspection reports with a story about puppy mills and lax government oversight. More evidence: Chris Krewson was circulating this help-wanted post the other week:

Looking for a data-head with an interest in journalism. The
job’s "Data Editor," a slight rethinking of our old Computer Assisted
Reporting Editor job.

We want someone to acquire and analyze locally relevant data and mash it up.

This person will also build and maintain databases to enhance our news report,
from computer-assisted investigative projects to consumer-focused community
topics. And also participate in news planning meetings to generate ideas for
data.

The ideal candidate would have solid news judgment and some experience as a
computer-assisted reporter or editor. The database editor also would be
responsible to maintain and update the newsroom Intranet, and would train and
assist staff in computer-assisted reporting skills and the Intranet.

This editor needs to be a self-starter and have the ability to juggle both
long-term and short-term projects. Knowledge of computer platforms, PC
applications, Excel and Access and an understanding of networking are required,
as is familiarity with ASP.net and SQL server. Knowledge of HTML and XML is
required. Experience with PHP/My SQL is preferred. A bachelor’s degree, not
necessarily in computer science, is required, a master’s would be a plus.

If you’re interested, send a resume, work samples or links to your databases to
Terry Rang, deputy managing editor, The Morning Call,

In Chicago, Crain’s does it. It’s an interactive guide to golf courses and readers can search by state, by city (Crown Point, Ind., for example) or town, or by other characteristics (by par). How much use will it get, how hard is it to build? It seems friendly to users and a good foundation of layering on extra information, including golfer comments.